


drowned god

by Goldmonger



Series: Proselytized [2]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, First Meeting, Gen, bart is literally the "i'm a bad bitch you can't kill me" vine, priest is a good dad? not really, rip vine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 19:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13197366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: “Don’t get stupid on me now, Priest. You’re this agency’s best retrieval expert. Do you actually have a plan?”“She’s a teenage girl. She’s alone and probably scared by now,” oozed Priest. “How hard can it be?”





	drowned god

“Twelve.”

“What?”

“Twelve. That’s from yesterday.” Ramirez flung the file across the table with enough force to send it sliding past Riggins’s place opposite him and onto the floor. He watched Riggins lower himself to pick it up with vicious satisfaction. “Those are their personnel files. I thought you might want to add to your collection. That’s what you’re doing, right? Starting a deadpool? I can’t think of anything else.”

Riggins turned to exchange a look with Priest, who tactfully became quite fascinated with the light fixtures by the door.

“There’s no need to become hysterical -,”

“Hysterical?” Ramirez stood up, and for being of average height and gangly proportions, he did loom over them in that moment. “Thirty-seven men are dead, you fucking robot. Your little _project_ has cost the lives of men I trained, I worked with and assigned -,”

“Assigned to Blackwing,” interposed Priest, smiling without smiling, watching it unsettle Ramirez. “Our division. Your tac team was under my superior here’s supervision.” He indicated a distinctly weary Riggins. “Not yours. I assure you this hurts us just as much as it hurts you.” Priest shook his head at his reflection in the polished veneer of the mahogany table, around which so many decisions had been made in shouts and thrown objects. The joys of bureaucracy.

“I posit,” said Priest sadly, “that we are more injured by this loss than you, Agent Ramirez.”

Ramirez inflated like a balloon, turning red. “How _dare_ – I know their families, I -,”

“Do settle down, gentlemen,” came a dry voice as the door opened, a woman with bushy hair yanked back in a bun, wearing a pantsuit and spectacles too small to be of any practical use striding past them to the head of the table. She slapped down a file and pressed her knuckles on the table, shifting her weight onto them. “Where are we with this little psychopath?”

“We are, ah, in the process of locating her again, ma’am,” said Priest brightly, earning him a glare that would have caused someone with a healthy respect for authority to fill their pants. Priest merely sat with his hands folded, at attention.

“In the process?” Director Osborne straightened up, gesticulating until Ramirez promptly handed her the remote for the projector. She fiddled with it until the machine hummed to life, and the grainy image of a pre-teen girl flicked onto the pull-down screen. Osborne pointed to the girl, her finger lingering over what was, unmistakeably, a bloody ear caught in her matted hair.

“Four months you’ve been on her,” said Osborne flatly. “Four fucking months, Scott. You know I hate agreeing with Ramirez, and so it galls me that you have made me side with him on the case of this ridiculous goose chase with a _Christ-damned child_.” She waited for Riggins to respond, something Priest himself was looking forward to hearing.

“It’s been – difficult, but -,”

“Difficult was that boy with the mind control who made Lieutenant Singh bite off his own fingers,” she snapped. “This is a massacre on the taxpayer’s dime, Scott. Now we have to find this little – _individual_ as a matter of national security, never mind your UFO conspiracy bullshit project. This has become my problem. Do you understand? Your fuckup is now my responsibility. Dozens of sobbing family members have been wandering through my office since June. I haven’t seen my wife in a week. My son has started to call me Katherine, not Mom. I am fit to throttle you, or cut your funding, whichever will bother you more -,”

“If I could take a whirl at the issue, ma’am,” said Priest, glazing over as Osborne’s intangible fury rebounded off him without effect. “I believe we’ve been approaching this all wrong.”

“It was your strike teams she mowed down,” said Osborne through clenched teeth. “Are you telling me they were sent in as a crapshoot?”

“More like as a response unit to an armed, but ostensibly containable threat,” said Priest. “She _was_ wielding a stolen AKM, ma’am, and she seemed to be able to use it. And unfortunately, my men had some trouble riddling a thirteen-year-old with bullets… Until she eviscerated Williamson, of course.” He shrugged at their visible nausea. “I assumed we’d be able to take her. I should have known there was something else at play here. Beyond skill. She does act like a child, she’s not some mystical super-warrior, like some idi – I mean, like some _people_ have been saying.” Ramirez flushed pink with anger, but Riggins was looking at him with renewed interest.

“So what are you proposing?”

“A new approach,” said Priest idly. “One void of weapons she can use to kill us all.”

A muscle jumped in Osborne’s jaw. “There’s no hope for a nice fat dart full of a concoction that could put down an elephant?”

“They always miss, ma’am. Every time.”

“Incompetence?”

“Much weirder reasons, ma’am.”

“Of course.” She scribbled something in the file she had brought in and slid it over to Priest, who stopped its momentum with the pad of his finger. “Finish it, Priest. If this ends with you dying too I’m ordering an airstrike, and that’s final. See if she walks away from that.”

Riggins’s prematurely lined face had turned white, and he looked beseechingly at Priest as though about to plead for the girl’s life. It would have been funny if it wasn’t such an annoying habit of his, this strange attachment to the people they captured. The zookeeper who keeps handfeeding the tiger. Yeah, he thought mockingly, that should end well.

“I will do my utmost not to perish any time soon, ma’am,” said Priest, ignoring Riggins completely as he stood. “I don’t even need to assemble any of Ramirez’s precious squadron.” Ramirez seemed ready to vault over the table and grab him by the throat, but Osborne dragged his attention away by folding her arms and giving him another of her trademarked glares.

“Don’t get stupid on me now, Priest. You’re this agency’s best retrieval expert. Do you actually have a plan?”

“She’s a teenage girl. She’s alone and probably scared by now,” oozed Priest. “How hard can it be?” 

He deftly made his farewells, pleased that he had managed to shut all three of them up in one go and titillated by the upcoming challenge. After an update from recon, who gave him the girl’s last known location with a sober “it was nice knowing you, man,” all he needed was a quick trip to the gun lockers in the armoury, into which Priest deposited half his bodyweight. He patted his Glock with the same affection someone might show a dog, then locked it in and left with nothing but the clothes on his back. And his butterfly knife, because he was optimistic, not a moron.

He apprised one of his subordinates - another Ramirez trainee, Lord help him – of the situation, and once he had reassured him he wouldn’t be anywhere near Ground Zero when Priest made contact he agreed to set up a handover at the Nevada state border.

Then it was just the open road, Johnny Cash, and him. And a narrowing scope. It was the closest to peace Priest had ever been.

 

The search took almost a week of tracking her through accounts from scandalised regulars of diners and supermarkets, bystanders with cameras and once, a homeless guy who had given her half a hotdog and chatted to her about the horsepower of a Mercedes convertible. He used his rank to commandeer security footage and to intimidate the locals out of spreading the news of their unorthodox drifter, and finally, after days and days of indirect threats and southern charm, an elderly woman mentioned a house.

“Whose house?”

Dorothea Howard, whose face was crinkled as a used napkin, fidgeted with the tea he had just bought her, blinking fiercely as though shocked.

“I perhaps shouldn’t say, it’s not my place -,”

Priest, fully aware of the effect of his stature when paired with his dark tactical uniform and vacant smile, laid his hand over hers, covering it entirely. “It really is best that you tell me.” He didn’t let his gaze drop, pleased he had chosen to sit on the side of the booth that obscured the woman’s sight of the door. He tightened his grip just a fraction.

“Bobby and M - Meredith Baker, over at Elk Horn,” she stammered out. “They took in some stray a few days ago, some little girl my nephew saw – he said she was drenched in – in -,”

“Blood,” responded Priest, but it was an afterthought as he attentively wrote down the name of the Baker residence, clicking his fingers impatiently whenever Dorothea stuttered on the directions.

 The journey there had no Johnny Cash. Priest was in stale clothes and needed a shower that wasn’t in a grotty motel. He fingered the butterfly knife up his sleeve contemplatively as dusk settled, wondering if this was his last night on Earth. He hoped not. He honestly didn’t want to give Ramirez the satisfaction.

The house that the girl had holed up in was pretty to look at, once he made it up the meandering driveway. Two storeys, a pair of gable windows, a scarlet barn out back. Stars winked down at him as he got out, feeling rather as though he were visiting someone on the moon. The fields that surrounded the farmhouse mimicked the flat black expanse of empty space, while the front and back yard of the Bakers’ glowed with the lambent interior light. A football game was playing, the cheers and energetic commentary becoming clearer as he approached the house and rang the bell.

A man in a sweater-vest and socks answered the door.

“Yes?”

“Hello. My name is Priest, Dr Priest to my friends. I am from a special mental health facility in Virginia, and I am presently searching for one of my patients that recently went missing. A girl,” he said, holding his hand at chest level. “About yay-high. Troubled.”

The man had grown several degrees more anxious-looking the longer Priest spoke, eventually taking the false identification drawn up by the recluses in the CIA’s basement somewhat gingerly.

“You’re here for Bartine?”

“Bart,” said Priest automatically. “Is she here? I’d very much like to see her.”

The man nodded, standing back so Priest could enter the house. “I’m Bobby, by the way. The girls will be in the kitchen, making dinner. Bart has been a good girl, you know, we picked her up because she looked to be in dire need of help, but begged us not to go to the police – in here, that’s right.”

They came to the kitchen, which was bright and colourful with patterned tablecloths, doilies and flowers on almost every available surface. It nearly gave Priest a headache, but he was too focused on what was happening on the other side of the kitchen, where something smelling of beef and roasted vegetables was bubbling away on a stove. Over it was bent a woman cresting forty, dressed as simply as her husband, and a girl who could barely see over the edge of the crockpot.

“Bart.”

The girl turned around slowly, profound irritation manifesting like a physical mask on her face. She was cleaner than Priest had ever seen her, swamped in jeans and a sweatshirt that had to be three sizes too big, her hair neatly combed and thankfully free of loose ears.

“I don’t wanna see you,” she growled. “I don’t want any more of you comin’ for me. You hear? I’ll do to you what I did to them.” She glanced at the woman beside her, and back to Priest venomously. “Go away.”

“Oh now, Bart, why would you want to talk that way to your old pal? Do you remember me? It’s Priest, now come on, we’ve gotten along okay so far.” It was sort of true, he reflected. He was the only one to survive the initial confrontation with her, scrabbling for his radio to scream for backup as he furiously swiped Lieutenant Troy’s brains from his eyes.

“Go away.”

Priest sighed, smiling apologetically at Bobby, who was watching the scene with a deepening frown.

“How did you get here, Bart?” asked Priest, feeling rather as though he were skating over a lake puddling with meltwater.

“I walked.”

“Did people try to stop you?”

“Yeah,” said Bart, perking up. “Yeah they did, and they tried to get me but I stopped ‘em first.”

Priest looked pointedly at the Bakers, whose body language indicated mild concern. Time to hike that up.

“Did you tell these nice people where you came from, Bart? And why you were covered in blood?”

“She was in an accident,” said Meredith Baker with only a trace of uncertainty. “Isn’t that right, honey?”

Bart was chewing on a hangnail with what approximated childish boredom, albeit slightly more sinister. “Kinda, yeah. An accident on purpose.”

“An accident with her parents,” said Priest, proud that he managed not to sound too triumphant. “What did you do to them, Bart?”

Bart had bitten off her fingernail almost down to the quick, and blood had begun to well up, smearing across her lips and teeth. “Killed ‘em,” she said sombrely. “I had to do it.” She hadn’t seen the Bakers’ reaction, nor their jerky shuffle away from her to get closer to Priest, mouths opening and closing like fish. She was grimacing at the floor, muttering under her breath every few minutes as though arguing with herself about something. In short, he reflected, the perfect accomplice. It hardly seemed fair.

Priest carefully steered the Bakers out of the kitchen, quelling their horrified questioning whimpers with one of Osborne’s patented glares. Bart was sitting at the table when he returned, head hanging in dejection.

“Is everyone still mad at me about that?” she complained, pulling at her hair until it started to come out in wispy hanks of brown. Priest stilled her hand as tentatively though it were rigged to blow, and when he retained all of his limbs, sat down beside her.

“Oh, Bart. Nobody’s mad at you.”

“Not even for killing all those guys?”

Priest’s eye twitched independently of him and he pursed his lips. “Well, what you did wasn’t good, now, Bart, but it wasn’t your fault.” He chanced a chuckle. “After all, it was _those_ guys who were after _you_ in the first place.”

She brightened a little. “Yeah! Yeah they were, and they wanted to take me away to, I don’t know, jail or whatever. And I’m not goin’. Are you gonna take me to jail?” She pushed the chair out from the table and hunched over, her face darkening. “I won’t go, I won’t -,”

She reached behind her suddenly and snatched a carving knife from the abandoned chopping board, brandishing it warningly. Priest froze, feeling his hair rise on every inch of his body. He felt strange, like the light was too bright, or the air too thick – anything could happen here, he thought suddenly; he knew how incomprehensible nonsense like time and space worked around people like Bart. This moment was decisive in a thousand ways that would spiral off into the future, and it could all kick off with a knife still dripping tomato juice buried half a foot in his chest. He cleared his throat.

“No-one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to, kid.”

Bart’s lip quivered, and she dropped the knife, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging them to her tightly enough that it had to be uncomfortable.

“I won’t go,” she said defiantly. Priest delicately took her hand, and she let him, more out of curiosity than anything, he figured.

“Bart, you’re smart. Brave. You’ve done okay so far. But you can’t be out here by yourself.”

“Why not? I’m fine, I can go anywhere. I have to…” She huffed with frustration. “I have to do something. I find to find a big bird, a big crow or something. I had a dream. I have to find a bird. This farm had so many birds, so that’s why I’m here. See?” She gesticulated around her wildly, as though a flock of them would materialise as proof.

“Birds – listen, Bart, you’ve been out here alone for so long. You can’t carry on like this forever.”

“I can,” she snarled, digging crescents into her forearms with jagged nails. “I’ll just kill anybody who tried to stop me.”

“That’s true,” sighed Priest, leaning back and crossing his arms. “No-one in the world will ever get close to you.”

“That’s right!”

Priest studied his cuticles. “Not a person to talk to about your day, or look after you when you’re sick, or to care about you at all, I suppose. You’ll just be the crazy girl covered in somebody else’s blood.”

Bart looked apprehensive. “I still think I’ll be okay.”

Priest stood, smiling his shark’s smile down at her and inwardly praying it would still be effective. “I suppose you will. Hey – why don’t we ask Mr and Mrs Baker what they think about you hanging out here for a while longer?”

He turned to where they were huddled half-hidden in the hallway, their eyes shining reflectively like dogs’ in the darkness.

“Bobby, was it? And Mrs Baker? Would you be all right holding onto Bart here indefinitely?”

“She just said she murdered her parents,” hissed Bobby, who was being held up or held back by Meredith. “And you, a mental health professional, want to leave her here? Are you insane?”

“Is that a no?” he inquired good-naturedly. Bart’s expression was descending into the kind of sorrow that would have been heart-wrenching to someone else. Priest imagined a twinge of sympathy, which lasted almost as long as it took for Bobby to vehemently nod his head. Priest patted Bart on the head once.

“What do you say, kid? Give Blackwing a chance? It might be some fun, you know. You’ll have so many friends there, I promise.”

“Blackwing?” Bart sniffled, scuffed her new second-hand sneakers against the floor. She started pulling at her hair again. “Yeah… yeah, okay. Sorry Mister and Missus. Thanks for the food and clothes and crap.” She took Priest’s hand and dragged him abruptly out the kitchen and down the hall, past the Bakers, who were rendered immobile with fear and incredulity at the whole occurrence.

“You’ll receive a visit from some attorneys within a week or so,” he said to them as he was towed from the house into the balmy night. “Do try to keep what happened here under wraps. For ah – for the child’s protection.”

She waited for him to unlock the jeep, already looking bored, and climbed in the passenger seat without prompting. She was silent the whole way out of town.

 

They stopped for gas less than ten miles from the Blackwing facility, Priest still riding the high from being able to tell Osborne she could order the National Guard to stand down – he had it covered. He rather wished he’d been there to see what shade of crimson Ramirez’s face turned, but there would be plenty of time for that when promotions were doled out next year.

He filled the tank while Bart sat with the passenger door open, turned to the breeze with closed eyes and squared shoulders.

“You want to come with me to pay?” he asked her once he was finished, the cogs of his old threat assessment machinating steadily under thoughts of which agent would be waiting at the border, what paperwork would result from a week-long mission and civilian contact, and whether having steak four nights in a row was pushing it. It’s not like he could stop her leaving if she really wanted to, but he didn’t want to give her the opportunity to dwell on the prospect.

Bart merely shrugged, following him into the store without preamble and peering around at the magazine racks and gaudy boxes of candy blankly. Within seconds, however, Priest felt a tug on his sleeve while the pimply young cashier rang him up, finding Bart pointing to an ice cream machine.

“I want it,” she said.

He felt something akin to elation as he obediently bought and paid for a pair of ice-cream cones drenched in syrup. They ate them on the way to the Nevada drop-point, their fingers sticky and Bart’s overlong hair, tussled by the wind from the open windows, soon ending up coated in the stuff. He supposed this is where Riggins felt those paternal stirrings, a haunting responsibility to care for the subjects rather than just study them. It would probably end up getting the whole programme shut down, Priest was always saying so, but he did see why the old man got so caught up. Bart hummed along to some pop group’s warbling on the radio, childish and small and harmless; the blood under her fingernails could have been paint or nail polish.

Mostly harmless, he thought, tracing the outline of the butterfly knife under his sleeve.

**Author's Note:**

> On the title:  
> Bart's named for the Slavic goddess of death and rebirth, and an effigy of her is 'drowned' in a body of water as a sacrificial rite to ensure the end of winter. I hate to cheapen the eeeerie effect of the title but not everybody goes hard with the research on this show, lol. Also a good time to point out the titles of this series are meant to show how Priest's interactions with the kids are designed to diminish their self-worth and make them feel like they don't belong in the world. That's why they need Todds and Kens and Amandas later on to help them feel like they can exist without an institution :D


End file.
